Planting a Seed
by TauTeFox
Summary: [Skylanders Academy Canon.] Malefor wanted his daughter back. Not her body, not captive, he wanted Cynder's loyalty, her trust, and Malefor understood the power of saying the right words at the right time.


Cynder was glowering. She wasn't sure what "glowering" meant, but she was pretty sure that was what she was doing. Mostly sure. She strongly suspected that this qualified as glowering. She was laying on the cold stone dungeon floor, her claws clasped tightly together in front of her like she was trying to crush her own fingers, and she was glaring daggers at the massive, heavy, thoroughly-locked dungeon door.

The torch-lit dungeon was in a castle, and the castle was in the Cadavorous Crypts, and it belonged to her father, Malefor. " _Malefor._ " It just _sounds_ evil, doesn't it? Who the heck names their son " _Malefor_?" Someone who wants their son to grow into an evil, terrifying dragon king, she supposed. Wait, was _her_ name evil-sounding? _Cynder, Cynder..._ She had to admit it sounded a little evil, but she was _certain_ that " _Malefor"_ was worse.

The dungeon was extremely big, just like every other place in the castle was extremely big. It had to be _extremely_ big, because her father was _very_ big, so the room had to be _more big_ in order to contain him, as did the door. In fact, most people wouldn't consider the door to be a door, it was more of a movable wall. Technically, all doors are movable walls, if you really think about it, but this one was more like a _proper_ wall, one made of stone.

Cynder perked up as she felt the ground tremble, the _boom, boom, boom_ of her father's footsteps. He was approaching the "door." With a low rumble, the huge slab of stone slowly slid to the side, and Malefor, her father, the whole _very big evil dragon king_ himself, stepped into the dungeon. She took a low stance, scanning around him, looking for an opening to somehow slip through the door, but his fiery orange eyes were on her the moment he poked his head through the gap, and they never left her as the rest of his enormous, black, scaly body followed, and the door began rumbling closed behind him. _Tsk._

"Cynder," he said in his supernaturally deep voice.

"Dad," Cynder replied.

They just looked at each other for a few seconds before Malefor began to sit down. "We need to talk."

"Where's Spyro?"

"Spyro is... indisposed."

"I should've known you were never going to give him back," Cynder snorted.

"If you'll believe it, I actually _was_ going to give him back, before... Well..." Cynder was suddenly intrigued, and Malefor was already trying to figure out what lie he was going to tell. There was no way he could tell her that that pathetic whelp _Kaos_ had taken Spyro, and he _certainly_ couldn't bring himself to admit that he'd handed him over without a fight. "... Before Strykore took him." It wasn't quite a lie.

"Strykore... took him? Where? Where is he?!" Cynder took a step toward her father.

"ENOUGH!" Malefor boomed, "I won't talk about Spyro any further. This isn't about _him_ , this is about _you_. About your _future_."

"You mean about your plan for me to live my life alone in the dark, hating the world, like you. Too late for that, Dad! I won't be a villain, and _you_ can't _make_ me!" Cynder spat.

"You're right."

"Well I- wait, what?"

"I said 'you're right,'" replied Malefor, sounding almost bored. "You chose to join the Skylanders. I can't make you do anything, and I won't take the risk of trying to make you do what I want, failing, and losing my only daughter for good. I don't think I need to. Here's my offer: we talk for a few minutes, you listen closely, and then... you're free to go."

Cynder stared at him, perplexed. "I... Uh... Okay." Cynder was doubtful, but she was already trapped in her father's dungeon, and she couldn't see how agreeing to listen to him blabber for a little while could possibly make things any worse. Cautiously, she sat down.

Malefor took a few moments to compose what he was about to say. "Do you know what happened to Spyro's dragon-kind?"

Cynder was quiet for a moment. "You destroyed them?" She wasn't sure whether that had been a lie or not.

"Ha! I just said that to goad Spyro," he said, rolling his eyes. "No. Well, I had a small hand in it, but no. The truth is that Spyro's dragon-kind made a mistake. Do you know what that mistake was?"

Cynder shook her head.

"They believed that they could be heroes. You see, dragons have never been the most well-liked beings in the Skylands. We're big. We're _powerful_. And we typically aren't afraid to _use_ that power."

Cynder rolled her eyes. She'd heard _this_ before.

"Spyro's dragon-kind, well, they thought we just had a teensy PR problem, see? That's all. We just needed to show them that dragon's are actually _nice!_ " The dragon king snorted derisively, emitting a puff of smoke from his nostrils.

"And gee, maybe they would've been proven right if you hadn't _destroyed them!_ "

"Oh for Hell's sake, did I not just say that I _didn't_ destroy them?"

"Oh, okay, you just _conspired_ to help _someone else_ destroy them, I guess! Much better!"

Malefor closed his eyes for a moment, then re-opened them. "We corrupted them. _We_ didn't destroy them. Tell me, Cynder, if some of your... _friends..._ " her father looked like he wanted to vomit just saying it "were turned 'evil,' would you _kill_ them? Is there anything that could _ever_ cause you to kill your allies?"

"I would _never_ betray my friends, or the Skylands," Cynder nodded firmly.

Malefor raised a scaly brow. "Well, at least you're loyal to _someone_. Unfortunately, Spyro's dragon-kind weren't lucky-enough to have _you_ as a friend. After they were corrupted, their _closest ally_ wiped them out, not _us_. I was _almost_ surprised, but then I realized I wasn't. Care to guess why not?"

Cynder could only shake her head slowly. In the back of her mind, she was trying to figure out whether _anything_ her father was saying right now was true.

"Because we'll never be _friends_ to them," Malefor snarled. "We're a liability. _Maybe_ a good _weapon_ , but mostly a _walking natural disaster_. Tell me, at the academy, have you been taught about _dragons_ in any of your lessons?"

There was a long pause before Cynder answered. "Yeah..."

"And? Go on."

Another pause. "They taught us that dragons are some of the most powerful beings in the Skylands."

"Ah ah ah, wait, I have a suspicion... Did your teacher use _that word_? 'Being'? Or did they refer to dragons as something else? Say, as ' _creatures_?' Maybe ' _beasts_?'"

Cynder began to look somewhat unsure of herself. "They... I don't think they said 'creature.' Or 'beast.' In fact, I'm _sure_ they didn't," she stamped her foot to emphasize her certainty.

"Well well, my mistake then. Continue."

Cynder straightened up and cleared her throat. "They taught us that dragons are among the most powerful beings in the Skylands, and that they're emotional and temperamental-"

" _We._ "

"Huh?"

"They taught you that _we_ are emotional and temperamental. ' _We,_ ' not ' _they_.'"

"Yeah... Yeah, I... I guess so..." Cynder suddenly felt... alone. Alone in a way she hadn't felt since before Skylander Academy.

"Did they teach you as though they anticipated you were going to have to _fight_ a dragon?"

Cynder answered with a very telling silence, and she focused her eyes on the floor.

Malefor chuckled. "You see, _this_ is why they can never treat us as friends. You can't be friends with a god, you can only _fear_ it."

"Well aren't _you_ humble," Cynder muttered, still staring at the floor.

"You don't need to be humble, you need only have an accurate estimation of your power, be it greater or lesser, and make use of it. I've been alive for a very long time, long enough to know that _power_ is all that _counts_ , and that what they call 'friendship' is just another path to safety, at the cost of your own freedom. The _herd_ has power, _you_ have safety as long as you aren't a _threat_ to it." Malefor leaned down, and loomed over his daughter. "Do you want to know _who_ betrayed Spyro's dragon-kind?"

Cynder didn't answer.

"None other than Eon himself."

Cynder's head snapped up to meet her father's gaze with a dumbfounded expression, but it only lasted a couple of seconds until she had properly processed what he'd said, and it turned to incredulity. "Seriously? You thought I'd believe _that_? Ha!" Cynder relaxed a bit. These were just more lies. "You never change, _Malefor!_ " she retorted, deliberately refusing to call him _Dad_.

But much to Cynder's consternation, Malefor seemed unperturbed. "Well then, I suppose you listened, which means it's _my_ turn to make good on the deal," he replied with a breezy air as he stepped aside. With a wave of his claw, the door began to open. "You'll find your path clear. You know the way. I won't stop you."

Cynder stood, confused, and slowly, cautiously took a step forward, then another. She looked back to catch her father's eye as she slinked through the doorway, and he returned her eye-contact with an unreadable expression. She advanced to a trot, then a run as she rushed through the labyrinthine halls, and finally, as she emerged into the green-tinged gloom of the Cadavorous Crypts, she took flight, with her father's words still rattling around in her brain.


End file.
